History investigates the past. What happened? And Why? The Why is what makes the thinker want to know. In this case, as a metaphor for the human ecosystem, planet Earth in the 21st century, Why the social and ecological devastation of the Niger Delta? How and Why did the human race, reach this pitiable state of affairs where the few have so much and the many have been dispossessed of everything, not least their dignity? Why does greed, war and injustice describe the human condition? How does the human landscape reflect this? The hedged fields, the grassy meadows and the woodlands of old England, the wasted industrial landscape of my youthful Sheffield, the black moors above the dreary suburbs.
Part I of Landscape, Wealth and Dispossession gives the reader an understanding of ecology and of the early evolution of the British landscape in the post-glacial environment that by the ‘Bronze Age’ already manifested the concentration of resources into the hands of an elite.
Part II I of Landscape, Wealth and Dispossession considers the evolution of feudalism as an inevitable socio-economic phenomenon arising from competition for agricultural land, the prime pre-industrial resource. English Feudalism reached its manorial apotheosis in the late 11th century when the very success of the Norman Settlement ensured that LAND would become A COMMODITY made valuable by the economic surpluses of the woollens industry. The well-placed began to accumulate land increasingly free of feudal obligations. The less well-placed began to be DISPOSSESSED of their feudal rights. A similar process arose in the Scottish lowlands with the subinfeudation policies of David I. The Black Death accelerated DISPOSSESSION, MANORIAL COURTS the platform upon which the feudal manor and its associated feudal rights dismantled.
PART III OF LANDSCAPE, WEALTH AND DISPOSSESSION considers the growth of capitalism and the commodification of land as a capital asset arising from the success of the English woollens industry that no less stimulated the capitalist economies of Scotland and Wales. By the 16th century, feudalism had transmogrified into capitalism, a landless proletariat evolving. Commercial, entrepreneurial towns, rather than subsistence agriculture, drove the economy. Landscapes became increasingly defined by engrossment and enclosure. By hedge and stone wall, landowners, great and small, could see what they owned. A wealthy and thus politically powerful commercial middle-class succeeded the ancient feudal aristocracy ravaged by civil war. The feudal power of the monarch became an anachronism. Elizabeth I begged and charmed Parliament for funds.
The church played a pivotal role in this socio-economic revolution. As the greatest medieval landowner it was an influential participant in the woollens industry. The expropriation of the reformation shifted landed power to the new commercial middle-class. The commodification of land was complete, the stage was set for the Industrial Revolution.